I have accepted an opportunity to teach medical students at the prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, starting this September.

After more than 30 years of practicing integrative medicine, I realize that it is time to share what I have learned and what I've been doing with young medical students and medical doctors, as well as the general public.

Through my blog I have been sharing my knowledge with the general public. However, I felt it was a necessity in my life to also be able to train young medical doctors.

Starting this September, I will be teaching a course to second-year medical students called "Doctoring". In this course I will be paired with a psychologist and we will be teaching young medical students how to interview patients, and get their history and how to help patients deal with difficult problems, from drug addiction to a cancer diagnosis. This course is not so much about the science of medicine at the art of meeting with the patient, and meeting their needs.

A recent study in  JAMA showed that if a patient comes to their doctor with more than two complaints, that the chance of the second complaint ever being addressed is 8%. This study was shocking to me as an integrative doctor, because I recognize that the body is an inter — connected web of organs and not just a narrow view of one organ system and one complaint. So knowing ALL the patients symptoms is important.

This course at UCLA is a required course and all medical students must take it. It goes on their permanent deans record that they use to get into a residency program.

I will be specifically teaching eight or nine students throughout the year. I expect it to be a very fun course. That is because UCLA uses what are called "standardized patients". When I heard this expression I asked what it meant?  A "standardized patient" is a professional actor who has been taught and trained to act out all parts of any given disease that the doctors are assigned for the day. The "patient"  will know the signs and symptoms of the disease and they will be able to intelligently answer the medical students questions while the psychologist and I look on and teach the students how to interact with them as a patient.

My partner in the course,who is a psychologist, has been doing this for a number of years and she told me that it is not only very valuable but also can be fun.

I look forward to telling you about the "cases" that we see, but  most importantly I  look forward to helping the students to learn that they must listen to the whole patient, with a compassionate ear.

It is wonderful that medical schools are starting to do this.

What has been your experience with interacting with physicians? Have you had to interact with physicians taking care of a loved one? How has your experience been? Let me know what you think?

I was one of 5 speakers to a pre-med class of students at UCLA who are taking a course entitled "Introduction to Integrative East-West Medicine". The students came from all over the world to study.
My friend Ka-kit Hui, M.D., F.A.C.P is the Chairman of the Course and invited me to share with the students my perspective on integrative medicine as a primary care doctor in private practice.

The other speakers included my friend Myles Spar MD, MPH who is the director of the Venice Integrative Medicine Clinic, at the Venice Family Clinic. Also Richard Pietras MD, Ph.D. who is the chairman of the Stile Program in Integrative Oncology at UCLA spoke. And Ping Ho, MA,MPH who is the director of the UCLArts and Healing Center spoke.

We each spoke to the students about our work and showed slides of our offices and projects.

After our talks we then all sat on a panel and answered questions from the students about integrative medicine from our perspective.

I had a really good time and enjoyed meeting my colleagues to see what they are doing. I look forward to more teaching opportunities in the near future.

Here is a nice picture of the five of us!

From left to right : Dr Pietras, Dr Hui, Ping Ho, Dr Soram, Dr Spar
 
 

I will be talking about integrative medicine to pre-med students and professors this Tuesday morning at UCLA. This course is chaired by the head of the UCLA Department of integrative Medicine Kah Kit Hui, M.D.

I will give you a full report about the conference afterwards.

I am just recently back from the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) convention in Carlsbad, California. The subject of this year's symposium was "Confronting Cancer as a Chronic Disease: Primary Care Taking a 360-degree View."

In all, 21 countries were represented and attendance was sold out at 600 people.

I have been a member of the Institute for Functional Medicine since its inception. It was created by my longtime friend and colleague Dr. Jeffrey Bland.

The 4 day conference had a full schedule with lectures starting at 7 AM and closing around 6:30 PM every night.

Even though I have attended so many other IFM conventions, this is probably the best one I have ever attended. All aspects of integrative oncology were discussed. Lectures on the role of antioxidants in cancer prevention and treatment were part of the conference. Other topics were nutritional and botanical support during cancer therapy, individualizing nutrition protocols to complement Cancer care, and using biomarkers for primary prevention in secondary recurrence of common cancers.

The conference was organized by my friends Mary Hardy, M.D. and Dwight McKee, M.D, Ph.D.  Dwight and I attended medical school together and were friends throughout school.

                Dr Soram with Mary Hardy, M.D.

            Dr Soram with Dwight McKee, M.D. Ph.D

Two of the most prominent speakers were Dr. Dean Ornish, and Dr Keith Block. Dr Ornish gave a lecture entitled "The Power of Sustainable Changes in Diet and Lifestyle". Dr. Ornish has carried over his amazing findings on diet and lifestyle for the benefit of heart disease and is now using it to benefit cancer patients. You can pick up his new book by clicking HERE.

Dr. Ornish was also the recipient of the Linus Pauling Person of the Year award, given for his work showing the benefit of diet and lifestyle for chronic disease. I was delighted to learn during his lecture that he was a student of Swami Muktananda, who was very good friends with my teacher Yogi Bhajan, and I was able to share a few words with Dr. Ornish about our teachers, and have a photograph taken with him and at the end of his speech.

            Dr Soram with Dean Ornish, M.D.

Dr. Keith Block gave an information packed lecture entitled "Long-Term Biologic Strategies for Ssecondary Prevention of Cancer". Dr Block has written a great book explaining his approach to integrative oncology. You can pick it up HERE.

Some of the lectures were very medically detailed. However, many were understandable by lay people and I wish some of my cancer patients had been able to attend some of these wonderful lectures and learn. In any case I am bringing back to my practice all the exciting new information about using integrative medicine for cancer patients. For those of you who would like to get a sample of these lectures, I am delighted to say that Jeffrey Bland's opening talk entitled "Looking Anew at Cancer" is available online for free by clicking this link.

I have already shared some of the new information from this convention in my blog and I look forward to sharing much more over the weeks ahead with all my readers.